The Directories series of the Norby Collection consists primarily of telephone directories documenting Brookings, South Dakota, and surrounding rural service areas. The series includes a Brookings city directory from 1901 and an early listing of business places from 1908, followed by an extensive run of Brookings telephone directories covering city and rural subscribers from 1909 through 2003, with some years absent. Additional directory types include farm directories for Brookings County, regional telephone directories serving broader geographic areas such as Northeast Lake, Deuel, Brookings Lake, and East Central Dakota, and official telephone directories issued by Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative, Inc. The series also includes city directories published by Johnson’s and the Directory Service Company, business locator directories, and a Yellow Book directory covering Sioux Falls, Brookings, Vermillion, and Yankton. Campus directories for South Dakota State University are present for multiple academic years from 1968 to 2003. Materials are arranged chronologically by directory type and year across five boxes.

The Directories series provides a reference record for identifying residents, businesses, and institutions in Brookings and the surrounding region across the twentieth century and into the early twenty first century. The combined coverage of city, rural, farm, regional, and campus directories supports research in local history, genealogy, business history, and community development, and documents changes in service areas and telecommunications providers over time.

The Compiled Data series of the Norby Collection consists of reference data compiled by George and Evelyn Norby and recorded into various databases. The material documents the city of Brookings with limited coverage of Brookings County and the state of South Dakota. The series includes compiled information on city and county officials, appointed officials, elections, mayors and commissioners, attorneys, governors, and public offices such as police, fire, sheriff, and post office. It also contains extensive data on streets, avenues, homes, apartments, mobile homes, building permits, businesses, churches, health care providers, newspapers, and civic services. Additional components include birth, death, and marriage data, obituary indexes, cemetery and church burial records, census information, city charters, historical summaries, business chronologies, National Register documentation, and records related to South Dakota State University buildings. Telephone books spanning the early twentieth century through the mid twentieth century are also included. Materials date primarily from 1871 to 2003 and are organized by subject across multiple boxes.

The Compiled Data series provides a reference resource documenting the administrative, geographic, social, and economic development of Brookings over more than a century. By aggregating information drawn from newspapers and other local sources, the series supports research in local history, genealogy, urban development, governance, and community studies. The data reflects sustained private documentation efforts that preserve contextual information not consistently available in official municipal records.

The Norby Collection documents the history, development, and daily life of Brookings, South Dakota, and Brookings County, with limited coverage of South Dakota more broadly, from the late nineteenth century through the early twenty first century. Assembled by George and Evelyn Norby, the collection is organized into multiple series reflecting their sustained efforts to collect, compile, and preserve local historical documentation.

The collection includes extensive runs of the Brookings Register newspaper, providing long term coverage of local news, community events, politics, agriculture, business, and social life. Complementing the newspapers are compiled data files created by the Norbys that aggregate information drawn from newspapers and other local sources. These compiled records document city and county officials, elections, businesses, streets and addresses, homes and housing, churches, public services, cemeteries, schools, South Dakota State University buildings, and other aspects of municipal and community history.

Topical subject files form a substantial portion of the collection and include materials related to Brookings city and county government, organizations, churches, businesses, historic districts, education, South Dakota State University, named individuals, military service, railroads, public safety, cemeteries, and statewide topics. These files consist of clippings, publications, ephemera, maps, directories, reports, and reference materials and reflect both official activity and community life. Researchers are advised to consult both city and county subject groupings, as related material may appear in either.

The collection also includes a large body of directories, primarily telephone directories serving Brookings and surrounding rural areas, along with city directories, farm directories, regional directories, and campus directories for South Dakota State University. These directories document residents, businesses, institutions, and service areas over time. Ephemera within the collection includes business cards, envelopes, signs, calendars, bumper stickers, postcards, ribbons and badges, matchbooks, tokens, framed images, and other transient printed materials associated with local commerce, events, and organizations.

Materials related to the Norbys themselves document the acquisition, housing, processing, and public presentation of the collection, including South Dakota State University Archives records, Images of the Past program materials, and limited personal correspondence, photographs, and household items. Together, the series span approximately 1871 to 2006, with some undated material, and are arranged by series and subject to reflect the structure of the Norbys’ collecting activities.